Filling in the Blanks: I'll See You Later
by sidlerocks
Summary: Bridging the gap between Law of Gravity and Monster in the Box. GSR.
1. Filling in the Blanks Timeline

_**Filling in the Blanks**_

**Season 5**

_Project Sidle_

Set during Spark of Life through Committed

(518-521)

**Season 6**

_It Was a Sunday_

Set during A Bullet Runs Through It

(607-608)

_Mélange: Beyond this Point There be Werewolves_

Set between Still Life and Werewolves

(610-611)

**Season 7**

_I'll See You Later_

Set during Law of Gravity

(715-716)


	2. Author's note

10-06-2008

I'm currently reading a really fabulous WIP—Helen Pattskyn's _Torchwood _story "Forget Me Not" (/s/4567675/1/ForgetNotMe). It's everything I usually avoid in fan fiction, AU, set WAY in the future, brutal, sad, but it's incredibly well written, touching and gripping. (You do need to be familiar with _Torchwood_ and there are references to things from her previous stories, so there's a lot to read before you get to this tale, but believe me, it's worth the effort. And maybe by the time you read the rest of her stuff, this story will be finished so unlike me, you won't have to be obsessively checking your e-mail to see if there's a new chapter posted.) It was published a week ago and has (as of this moment) 51 reviews, almost all begging for her to write quickly.

Now, I've written four stories, and between them, they've gotten more than 23,000 hits. And a total of 37 reviews, many of them from the same wonderful reviewers. It occurs to me that as I post the stories as complete tales and don't beg for reviews, that there's not much incentive to comment. It would kind of be nice to know if I'm just spinning my wheels, though. I mean, I figure by the time you've slogged through somewhere between seven and 30,000 words, you must have an opinion. Mind letting me know whether you've enjoyed the stories or feel like you just wasted your time? Worth writing more?

Oh, and if you're a Torchwood /Janto fan, even if, like me, AU and crossovers are not your thing, check out Helen Pattskyn. I think you'll be glad you did.

BTW, if you've already ready my stories, I haven't updated the stories themselves, just added comments and made some formatting changes, so don't work too hard looking for the changes.


	3. Chapter 1

Bridging the gap between _Law of Gravity_ and _Monster in the Box_. NC-17. Thanks tons to Soapy Raindrops. Her comments and edits made this story far better than it was. So glad we wandered onto the forum on the same day, my friend…

**I'll See You Later…**

Chapter 1 

Gil Grissom, supervisor of the night shift at the Las Vegas Crime Lab, the second busiest crime lab in the country, slipped quietly through the front door of his town house, body heavy with fatigue, leather carryon slung over a shoulder, and sniffed appreciatively at the spicy fragrance wafting from his kitchen. After being away for a month teaching a graduate level interterm seminar at Williams College, he'd flown back that morning—no, the morning before. He'd gone straight from the airport to work, which had not been his original plan, not been his intent really at all until he saw the lights of the strip on approach to McCarran. After living most of his life alone, after years of fighting his attraction to a younger woman, to a woman who worked for him, a woman he had wasted so much time trying to convince himself would be better off without him, over the last two years he'd found with Sara Sidle a peace, a joy he'd never imagined the world held for him. Looking out over the neon of Las Vegas' landmark street, the yawning absence of Sara which had haunted him for four weeks had become an insurmountable force, and instead of giving the taxi driver his home address, he'd sent him in the direction of the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Sara had offered to meet him at the airport, to take some personal time, and he'd turned her down, not wanting to inconvenience her.

It wasn't until later that it occurred to him that maybe her offer wasn't just generous, maybe she wanted to be there for him, to have their reunion somewhere other than in front of the entire office where their relationship remained a secret, to actually be able to touch when she saw him, that she might have ached for him as he had for her, but as was so often the case with his revelations where Sara was concerned, by the time he considered those possibilities he'd refused the offer and didn't see a way back to it. It was a constant source of amazement for him still that Sara put up with him, Sara who turned heads everywhere she went and could have had any of the men in her life, if only she exhibited the slightest interest. How she could want to be with, could continue to want to be with someone his age, someone who looked like him, someone as oblivious as he could be, and as able to talk about anything except his feelings for her as he was astounded him. But then her persistence, her nearly unwavering faith that he would eventually come to recognize the connection between them always had perplexed him. He'd not treated her well through some of those times, and the fact that she'd continued to believe in him even then gave him hope for his salvation, for if she were to give up on him now, it would surely rip his heart out from his chest. "If I were going to stop liking you," she'd once said sleepily to him, somehow reading his unspoken bout of insecurity, "I'd have done it by now."

But the drop-by-the-office-hoping-to-see-Sara whim had turned into a triple shift, culminating in the death of one of his investigators, and now, significantly more than 24 hours after his plane landed, he was finally dragging home. He'd not seen Sara again after running into her briefly in the hallway outside his office, but at least he'd managed to get the evening shift to work doubles tonight, so that he could send most people home. His youngest investigator Greg Sanders had been off the night before. He'd come in early to help track down missing investigator Mike Keppler once he went off the reservation, but he at least was somewhat rested and could work. Grissom'd left a message for Sara to go home once she returned to the lab after processing a murder victim's apartment. She'd already worked a double plus. He'd been in the process of sending two more of his exhausted team, Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown, to catch some shut-eye when the call came in from LVPD Detective and his good friend Jim Brass.

"Gil, there've been shots fired at the Blue Siren Motel. Catherine is there with some uniforms. The call went out 'officer down'. Dispatch says it's Keppler."

"On my way." Not until the next day would he realize that while he was heading out to join Catherine Willows, his senior investigator, long-time sounding board and friend at what turned out to be the scene of the murder of his missing investigator, instead of going home, Nick and Warrick had headed to Henderson to begin a canvas for evidence Keppler had left for them, its location marked by the presence of an LVPD issued GPS encoded cell phone. So he'd driven to the Blue Siren and arrived just in time to see paramedics call the code they were running on the shot Keppler, just in time to have Catherine collapse into his arms sobbing, to hear her whispering "he saved my life!" He didn't remember ever having seen her so shattered, not even after her ex-husband was murdered.

So he'd driven her home, and tucked her into her mother's for once nurturing arms then finally, finally, finally he'd headed home himself.

Setting the bag down in the entry, he tracked the sounds of activity into the kitchen, where Sara, 15 years his junior, and still the smartest, biggest hearted, most beautiful and most interesting woman he'd ever met, stood at the stove, her back to him. His brindle

Boxer Hank sat nearby, watching her adoringly. He might have been Grissom's dog on paper, but his heart too belonged to the cook. Hank turned his head at Grissom's arrival and wagged his tail, but didn't move from his spot beside Sara.

"Hi."

She turned quickly, a warm smile softening her sharp and curious brown gaze.

"Hey." She made no move toward him, and he was suddenly aware, with a clarity born of separation, that she almost never did, always letting him set the pace of their relationship. He thought back to his departure, when his inadequate words so failed to express his profound feelings, and blessed whatever it was about this woman that allowed her to accept him, to understand what he meant to say, even when the words couldn't find their way across his lips. Hank, on the other hand, finally rose and wiggled his way across the room to greet his prodigal owner. Sara spoke again as Grissom bent to massage his velvety ears.

"I heard about Keppler. Catherine all right?"

"Not yet. But she's tough. She will be."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not really. Not now."

He stood, Hank wandered back to his spot near the stove and Grissom took a step forward, filled suddenly with the sheer joy of seeing her, with the need to feel her touch, as he had been back at the Crime Lab when he encountered her unexpectedly at the office, fresh off of a day spent digging through a landfill. He'd felt such pleasure at her presence, the odor hadn't registered, and wouldn't have mattered, but it did to Sara, and she'd backed away from him. Again, only later had the story he'd heard about her first failed date with her ex-boyfriend paramedic Hank Pettigrew—the two-timing weasel—come back to him. The all-permiating odor of the badly decomposed body Sara was investigating had driven Hank off. Poor Sara! Déjà vu. He sniffed appreciatively, taking in both the scent of Sara and the tofu curry bubbling on the stove.

"It was strange having meat be such a focus of meals," he commented idly, nodding at the pan, changing the subject. While he didn't himself follow a strictly vegetarian diet, he found that over the last couple of years of frequently shared meals with this woman who had given up meat--even the beef jerky she'd previously been addicted to --after spending five nights up with him watching the development of maggots on a pig corpse in an effort to catch a murderer, he'd gotten out of the habit of eating food derived from animal flesh. Sara followed his lead in conversation. "Ah, yes, the old New England boiled dinner. I worried a little that you might get sick when you first got there. Meat can be tough to digest when you haven't been eating it for awhile."

"I actually found that I didn't want much. I ate a lot of pasta and salads."

"How was Williams?"

He paused, considering. "There isn't much prettier than a small New England town in winter, although it didn't really snow until almost the end of the month."

"You would have just missed all the little twinkly white Christmas lights. Yankees don't hold with keeping those up past New Year. It's even prettier then."

"Williamstown is a beautiful little town."

"Hmmm. Yes, if you don't mind living without delivery pizza."

He was surprised.

"You've been there. I don't think you mentioned that when we were talking about my going."

"No? I don't suppose I really thought it was relevant. I had a friend who went there. I spent a couple of weekends with her while I was at Harvard. Went for the Williams-Amherst game one year. Amherst killed them."

"I don't think I'd realized how much I've come to take for granted living in a big city."

"Like?"

"Well, roller coasters for one."

Sara laughed. Riding roller coasters was Grissom's particular passion.

"I'm not sure all big cities have roller coasters, do they?"

"Can you name one that doesn't?"

She thought. "Does Boston?"

"Well, the great wooden 1917 coaster they called the Giant Coaster was there originally, but it was moved to Six Flags in Maryland. Six Flags Massachusetts does still have a couple of coasters worth riding."

"Isn't that in Agawam?"

"Close enough. And then there's being able to get almost any kind of food any time at night." He took another step toward her. She turned away from him to reduce the heat under the curry, then faced him again, and moved a half-step forward.

"Hmmm. There must be something to be said for not having to be up all night, though. And how was the seminar? Your students?"

"Young. Very young. I had no idea."

She smiled at him. "No idea what?"

He smiled back.

"How old all of you have become." That made her actually laugh.

"Really?"

"Well, think about it. Greg's the baby of our little family. These kids are ten to fifteen years YOUNGER than he is. They've never lived in a house without a computer, the Hubble Space telescope has been looking at stars their whole lives. The Simpsons aired before some of them were born. They've only known three presidents, and two of them were named 'Bush'."

"Okay, you've scared me."

"They're plenty bright, Sara, but they have no perspective on life."

Her eyes clouded over briefly and he could see her remembering. Unknown to any of their colleagues, Sara's childhood had been anything but idyllic, growing up in a house with a father who was an abusive alcoholic and, after her mother murdered him and was committed to a mental institution, a series of foster homes.

"Some might have more perspective than you're aware of."

"I don't think so. I may not have had any idea what you'd gone through when we met, Sara, but I recognized that there was a depth to you the first time we spoke. That only comes with mileage and loss. I know there are kids who have experienced those things, but I don't think any of them were in my class." He paused, considering. "Did you know that Hodges was auditing my class online?"

Sara's eyes went wide at the revelation that their bright but difficult and socially challenged trace evidence tech had secretly taken Grissom's seminar on mosquitoes, then crinkled as the implications trickled through her brain.

"And how is Hodges' online persona?"

"Annoying."

"Not a huge surprise. I have to say, though, I think I've actually gotten used to him. He doesn't really bug me much any more."

"He doesn't think you have a 'close personal relationship' with him either."

"Well, there is that."

"I really missed you, Sara." He hadn't planned the words, hadn't really even known he was going to say them, but suddenly they were out in a gust, and on the table between them. He held his breath. Sara smiled again, widely, warmly.

"I really missed you too, Gilbert."

He took one more step and closed the space between them. Sara reached up gently and ran her hand against his cheek. His

eyes closed, giving in to the sensation. He turned his head and laid a soft kiss on her palm.

"I don't ever want to do that again."

"Teach a seminar?"

"Be apart from you for a month." He reached his own hand out to her, running his fingers along her jaw bone, then back behind her head, tenderly drawing her lips towards his own, bussing them softly three times then settling his mouth over hers in a brief, hard, branding kiss, before pulling away. Sara looked up at him with a smile on her lips.

"Really. So, who are you, and what did you do with Gilbert Grissom?"

"Oh, believe me, I'm him. I had a lot of time to think while I was there, Sara. A lot of time to realize that I don't do a very good job of telling you how I feel."

She took a half step back, startled. He opened his eyes and looked at her, perplexed.

"Okay, Gris, now you're really starting to worry me."

He relaxed and again smiled at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling in affection.

"Don't worry, honey. It really is me." He looked past her at the stove. "My memory is that curry is even better if it sits, maybe even the next day. Is that right?"

"Sure."

"What do you say we put this away until a little later. It looks and smells delicious, but…"

"Give me five minutes."

Working together, they had the food packed away and in the fridge and dishes stacked in the sink in three. Sara ran a cleaning rag one last time over the counter, then turned hesitantly to face him. Seriously, he held his hand out to her, and she took it.

"_From you have I been absent in the spring,_

_When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim_

_Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,_

_That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him._

_Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell_

_Of different flowers in odour and in hue_

_Could make me any summer's story tell,_

_Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;_

_Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,_

_Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;_

_They were but sweet, but figures of delight,_

_Drawn after you, you pattern of all those_," he quoted

softly.

"_Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,_

_As with your shadow I with these did play_" Sara recited back to him.

He looked at her, awestruck as always that she was with him. In all the world, he wondered, could there possibly be another woman who matched his excitement at the puzzles posed by crime scenes, felt the same pain and outrage on behalf of the victims, could finish the crossword answers he missed and knew Shakespeare's sonnets by heart?

"Shall we go to bed, dear?" he asked.

"I'd like that."

Suddenly he was aware of Sara's fresh floral scent, clean hair, clean clothes, and that he was still in the clothes he'd been wearing when he left Williamstown for Bradley Field two full days before.

"I think I need a shower."

"Want company?"

"More than you could possibly imagine."

"'Cause I'm pretty sure Hank's game…"

"I love him, and I missed him, but I wasn't inviting the dog."


	4. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Grissom dropped his jacket over the back of a chair and took Sara's hand—warm, firm, familiar and comforting. More than any other moment that day, it felt like homecoming. He thought back to the time when the only intimacy he would allow himself with Sara was holding her hand, when that simple contact was the only way he had to convey how very deeply he cared. Even after all this time, after all the other intimacies they'd shared, he never forgot, never took that simple contact for granted. Wordlessly, he led her up the stairs and into the bathroom. He glanced around as they entered and gently closed the door, preventing Hank from following them. Sara had arranged fresh flowers and a scattering of candles in the small space. Clean fluffy towels hung on the rack, but a steamy hint of Sara's shampoo lingered in the air.

"When we look for another place, a bigger bathroom with a whirlpool and decent sized shower stall is going to be a priority." He moved his free hand to her cheek. Sara gently tugged her hand from his, and brought both of her arms up and around his neck, moving closer to him.

"'When we look for another place'?"

"Don't you think it's about time? I love my townhouse, but we could use a little more room, and at this point, we're just wasting money on your rent."

He smiled down at her and she tugged gently on his neck, bringing his lips down to meet hers. The contact remained soft and gentle for a moment only, then caught fire. Grissom poured all of the loneliness and need of the last month into his kiss, while Sara answered with the insecurity she's been fighting while he was gone.

"I'm so glad you're home," she whispered as he pulled far enough back to look into her eyes which suddenly swam with fought-back tears. "I was afraid that part of what you needed to get away from was me." His face froze as horror, then realization and regret flashed through his eyes.

"Oh, no, Sara! I thought you knew, you understood… I thought I explained…"

"No, you did. And I do understand. But not all fears are rational, Gris."

"If I'd been able to see a way to take you with me…"

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad, I just meant—"

"Sara, listen. You don't ever need to censor what you say, not when you're talking to me. I'm in this for the long run. I'm not going anywhere. The only thing that made me even hesitate about going to Williams was you. And oh, did I miss you! More than I knew was

possible. But I'm not sorry I went. I needed the time to get a little perspective on things. And I was so tired..."

He continued looking down at her and his eyes darkened as they moved over her face. There was a determined set to his jaw as he reached out, took the hem of her shirt in his hands, and deliberately pulled it up and over her head, confirming with approval his observation that Sara had gone without a bra when she dressed after her earlier shower. A smile slowly took over Sara's face.

"I do love this shirt on you, but…" Her eyes held his as she methodically unbuttoned his shirt from top button to bottom, pulling the soft brown fabric free of his slacks when she reached his belt line, then raised her hands to pull the shirt back and off of his shoulders, dropping it to the ground behind him. As Sara moved her hands to his belt, he matched her actions, unsnapping her jeans without breaking eye contact. Sara slid her hands to the back of his slacks and tugged it down, lingering over the taut muscles of his buttocks.

"I still can't believe no one has noticed how much you've been working out," she commented, squeezing appreciatively.

"Believe me, Sara, no one other than you pays that much attention to how I look."

"And they call themselves investigators…"

He slid off both slacks and boxers then stepped out of them in a single move, and kicked free, then quickly peeled off Sara's jeans and pulled back the shower curtain, holding it open.

"After you, milady."

Sara stepped in, leading him by the hand. Grissom broke contact with her long enough to turn away and adjust the shower to a warm, pulsating spray, then moved to face Sara and backed her up smoothly until she was flat against the tiles. He smiled down at her upturned face.

"Hey," she greeted him softly.

"Hey."

Grissom bent his head, taking her mouth in a long, slow, sizzling claiming kiss. Sara wrapped her arms around him and pressed forward, feeling the arousal she'd been aware of since he'd joined her in the kitchen grow even harder against her. Normally a master of foreplay, Grissom broke the kiss and met her eyes, assessing her readiness, then lifted her thighs up and around him, pinning her against the wall, and letting her slide down and onto him. He froze for one moment, celebrating the soaring joy that always surged through his veins upon his joining with Sara, a joy unlike any he'd ever experienced before taking the plunge and opening himself fully to his remarkable woman, then slowly began to move against her. Sara's thighs tightened involuntarily around him, arms around his neck, her eyes closed and her head fell back as he picked up his pace. Grissom felt her clench against him before he heard Sara cry out. With a final thrust, he joined Sara, emptying himself into her. They clung to each other panting while their heart rates gradually slowed, then Grissom gently let her slide her feet down to the ground. His hands slid up her back, touching, massaging, running from buttocks to shoulders, then sliding forward to take the weight of first one breast, then the other. While holding his head in place for a kiss, Sara feathered the fingers the other hand over his groin, causing the cords of his neck to go taut as he pulled back away from her.

"Sara!" he growled, warningly. She looked up at him in feigned innocence.

"Gris?"

He reached down and took her wrist in his hand. "If you keep doing what you're doing, we'll be in this shower forever."

"And?"

"And the water is going to get cold."

"Well, then, we'd better get you cleaned up before we freeze, and then I'll just have to find some way to warm you back up." She turned him away from her, took the bar of his favorite soap and reaching around him, began running it in slow circles over his chest, down across his abdomen, then around to his back before returning her attention to washing his reawakening erection. He groaned, leaning against the wall of the shower for support, eyes closed.

"Tilt your head back, Bugman." He followed the instructions without opening his eyes and Sara's strong, competent fingers massaged shampoo into his scalp making his head tingle.

"God, Sara!"

"Do you realize that's just about the first thing you said to me when I came to Vegas?"

"If so, the sentiment I was expressing then was very different from the one I'm feeling right now, except that I was so very glad to see you then too." He sighed. "What you're doing feels SO good."

"I'm glad, but unfortunately it's time to rinse you off. Keep those eyes closed…" She adjusted the showerhead, and the spray fell on his head, sluicing off the soap. After a few minutes he heard the faucet turn and felt the water stopped falling. He straightened and was turning towards Sara, his eyes still closed, when he felt the warmth of an oversized bath sheet wrap around him. He used a corner to dry off his face and opened his eyes. Sara stood before him, looking up, her lithe body glistening with droplets of water. He held the front of the towel open, and she stepped into it, joining him in the warmth. He wrapped his arms, and the towel, tightly around both of them, experiencing the solidity of this woman pressed against him, her breasts against his chest, nipples erect in response to his presence, their bodies fitting perfectly together. She reached up, bringing the edge of the towel with her, and rubbed his head, drying his hair. After a time he reached up and stopped her, taking the towel from around them both and turning his attention to slowly drying first Sara's body, then her hair. They moved out of the shower together. Grissom picked Sara's hair brush up off the counter, running it through her hair until the brown locks laid smoothly along her skull.

"Gris?"

"Hmmm?"

"Let's go to bed."

Grissom laid Sara gently down on the bed, taking in the scent of fresh sheets. She reached up for him but he shook his head deliberately.

"My turn."

He reached into a drawer beside the bed and pulled out a bottle of eucalyptus massage oil.

"Roll over, Sara."

He sat down beside her on the bed, pouring oil into his hand and warming it before gently rubbing his fingers lazily up and down Sara's back. She sighed with pleasure. He began massaging more deeply and she relaxed further.

"If you're not careful, you're going to put me right to sleep."

"That would be all right, Dear." With an effort, she rolled over and met his eyes.

"No, it wouldn't. I have more plans for tonight."

"Do tell," he responded idly, focusing on the sensations as he resumed his examination of her body, this time from the front, following his lingering fingers with his lips and tongue. As Grissom narrowed his attention first on one breast and then the other, alternating lathing her areoli and gently scraping her nipples with his teeth with sucking strongly, the rasping prickle of his beard was a novel sensation. He'd shaved his last beard months before after a whisker burn from a particularly ardent afternoon had risked prematurely revealing their changed status to their colleagues. Sara agreed with the reasoning but sometimes missed the bristle. She found herself no longer at risk of falling asleep, instead writhing beneath him on the bed. Her body vibrated with heat from her breasts to the clenching pit of her stomach. The fire between her legs, banked in the shower, began flaring. Again she reached for Grissom, and this time he gently took her wrists and moved her arms up over her head.

"I told you, this time is my turn, Honey." He explored, licked, kissed and sucked his way across her flat belly, along her inguinal crease and a little bit down her inner thigh rubbing his beard against her sensitive skin, while Sara became increasingly agitated.

"Gris!"

"Patience, Sara." Reverently, he parted her labia placed a gentle kiss in the center.

"GRIS!" Yielding to her demand, he ran his tongue along the crease, forward to her clitoris. Sara bucked beneath him and he started sucking and licking with intense concentration. Sara's legs extended tautly under his hands, shaking as she shattered.

"Please, Gil!"

Smoothly he moved up her body and slid into her. Still in the final throes of orgasm, Sara came again almost instantly. Gritting his teeth, Grissom held still, holding back, riding out Sara's wave and when the quivers quieted, started slowly moving inside her, building up a new tension. Sara ignored his prior injunction and wrapped her legs around his buttocks and dug her fingers into his back. This time when Sara came, they orgasmed together. Unwilling, unready to detach from her, Grissom carefully rolled them onto their sides, remaining inside her. Sara made no move to separate either.

"Wow, Gris," she whispered softly.

"I love you, Sara." He'd felt the words for so long, they came out easily, leaving him to wonder why he'd put off saying them out loud.

"Is that a post-coital contentment 'I love you' or—"

"It's an 'I've never in my life been as happy as I am with you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you' 'I love you', Sara. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to say so. I've felt this way for such a long time…"


	5. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 

Rays of late afternoon sun were slanting through the slats of the window blinds when Sara woke spooned with her back warmly against Grissom, his arms wrapped firmly around her. She could tell from his breathing that he too was awake.

"Have you slept at all?"

"A few minutes. I was enjoying myself too much to want to miss any of it." He was quiet for a minute and then asked, "How are you, Sara, really?"

"I'm fine. Better than fine. The man I love just told me that he's in love with me." She answered quickly, snuggling back against him.

He tightened his arm around her in response. They laid together in silence for several minutes, then Grissom said casually, "It sounds like there were some strange dynamics while I was gone."

"Oh?"

"Warrick asked me what I knew about 'reverse forensics'. When I asked what he knew about them, he gave me a rundown on the case. I'd like to hear your take on what happened."

"Keppler and the sheriff convinced Catherine to help stage a crime scene to draw out a murderer who was in hiding. They thought they could fool us. It didn't work."

He was quiet for an uncharacteristically long time.

"They faked a crime scene? And had the rest of you work it as if it were real?"

"Maybe you should be talking to Catherine about this, instead of to me."

"Don't worry—I'll be talking to Catherine. But she was in no shape last night, and I want—need—to hear it from you too. Both personally, because I want to know how you are and what's been going on with you the past month, and professionally, because I value your judgment and observations. So please, Sara, tell me about it?"

"You hungry? Because I'm starving, and this might be a better conversation if we both had some coffee in our systems."

His arms tightened again.

"I'm not sure I'm going to let you out of arms' reach ever again."

"Hmmm. Sounds pretty nice." She ran her foot along his calf in a gentle caress. "Although it might get a little awkward at work. But you've got to eat. Have you had anything since getting off the plane?"

"Ummm—I think I had a sandwich somewhere along the line…"

"No sleep, almost nothing to eat. What would you like for breakfast?"

He bent and kissed the side of her neck, nuzzling. Sara purred.

"I'm going to be sorry when you shave that off again."

"Maybe I'll let you do the honors this time."

"That could be fun."

"Mmmm." He idly trolled his fingertips lightly up the center of her stomach and along her breast bone. She arched her back in response, then snuggled back against him again.

"Sara? Just how hungry are you? Do you need to eat right now?"

"Hmm? Well, I'm open to alternatives…"

"Good to know," gently he roller her over onto her back and brought his lips to hers in a claiming kiss, "because I have some ideas."

An hour and a half later, hunger finally overwhelmed other more sated appetites and after another slightly quicker shower, they made their way to the kitchen.

"Cereal, toast, fruit, pancakes, French toast, waffles, muffins, crepes, scrambled, omelets… What sounds good?" Sara queried as she readied the coffee maker and he and Hank brought in the paper.

"If you have no preference, how about—omelets? You want me to grate or chop?"

"You chop, I'll get the eggs and cheese."

Grissom opened the fridge, passing a carton of eggs, a jar of mayonnaise and chunks of cheese and assorted vegetables to Sara.

"Onions and red peppers?" he queried.

"Hmmm—not today."

"I've got mushrooms and spinach."

"Well, why don't I trade you cheddar for feta then." They set to work, companionably prepping in parallel. Sara paused to pour two cups of coffee when the pot finished percolating. She placed a pair of English muffins in the toaster, ready to lower when the eggs were close to being ready, browned some butter in a heavy omelet pan, then whipped the eggs and mayonnaise frothy. After pouring the egg mixture into the hot pan and lowering the burner, she started talking without looking at Grissom, carefully adding the cheese and vegetables and watching the omelet cook. He had been setting the table but stopped and sat, listening intently as she spoke.

"Nick and Catherine worked the original scene—the Zamesca shooting—with Brass. They thought they knew who'd done it, some low-life drug-dealing club owner named Thomas Simon, but they couldn't find the guy. I guess they thought if he believed they were off his trail and looking for someone else, he'd crawl out from whatever rock he was hiding under. But it was weird from the start. I got to work that day and Catherine had covered the windows of a lab and was doing something she 'couldn't talk about'. Keppler was with her. She assigned everyone to busy work jobs away from the lab. At least Greg and I had an actual case. She sent Nick and Warrick off to the garage to process a ton of stolen motorcycles. And it wasn't just us—she ordered Henry from the trace lab while he had drug evidence out from my case. Keppler was using the ballistics lab while Bobby was out of the lab. Hodges figured from the first that it was an IA investigation. I think maybe it was worst for Warrick, because he's who they picked to process the scene. Who they thought they would be able to fool. Not that they did. And Nick also started to realize something was off as soon as evidence started coming in to the lab. And then he linked our murder to the Zamesca case. When Catherine shut down his evidence and ORDERED him to drop it, he cried foul and gathered the rest of us for a meeting outside of the building. We decided to work the case independent of Catherine and Keppler. It didn't take long to prove that their crime scene had been staged. At about that point, Simon came out from hiding and they grabbed him. But the DA wouldn't file charges because the Under Sheriff hadn't let her in on the plan the way he was supposed to, and she said she couldn't tell the real evidence from the planted stuff. I think Keppler and Catherine only brought us in then because they needed us to come up with something else to finger the guy."

"I know what Warrick thought about all of this. How about you?"

She turned around, facing him, meeting his gaze directly.

"I know Catherine was put in a tough spot, Gris, but she made the wrong choice—again, in my opinion. We're working together all right, but when push comes to shove, I don't trust her. And I don't think Nick does either."

"And Warrick?"

"Well, you talked to him. You probably know better than I do. But he's in love with her. He'd cut her slack no matter what."

He looked at her curiously. "Really?"

"Yeah, really." Her lips quirked in a quick smile.

"What if I had done this, Sara? How would you feel about it then?"

She shook her head, moved to the toaster and pushed down the lever.

"You're asking an impossible hypothetical. You would—could—never have done this."

"You sound so sure."

The corners of her lips twitched up. "I am. First, you would never fake the evidence. You would have found another way to get this guy. And second, you would never have tried to put something over on the rest of us. You respect us too much, value us as a team. It would have been all of us or none of us, no matter what the Under Sheriff wanted."

He nodded. "Well, thanks for that. But besides everything else, the concept of 'reverse forensics' has been pretty soundly discredited, both legally and scientifically. As you found, it muddies the evidentiary waters too much. Besides taking time away from the job we should all be doing."

"I'd never heard that term before. 'Reverse forensics'."

He smiled at her. "Because you've been well trained in ethical crime scene analysis. With any luck, neither of us'll ever hear it again."

Sara checked the omelet, folded it closed, flipped it over, split it deftly in half and slid it onto two plates, topping each half with a dollop of yogurt before bringing them to the table. Grissom stood, refilled their coffee cups and poured two glasses of orange juice as Sara retrieved the muffins. He looked at the plates.

"I'm suddenly starving."

She looked at the overstuffed omelets. "I probably should have made more food."

"No, this is perfect." He glanced at the clock. "I never even looked at the schedule. Honestly, I'm not even sure what day it is. Are we working tonight?"

"No, we're both supposed to be off."

"How'd you arrange that?"

"It really didn't take that much finagling. Just happened to be my day off, and I kind of idly mentioned to Catherine that you'd probably like a little time to get settled back in, run some errands once you got home. So, since Tuesday is the quietest night of the week…"

"What if you hadn't been off on Tuesday?"

"I would have come up with an excuse to swap with someone."

"No wonder I'm so crazy about you." He paused. "How is Nick?"

"Angry. Hurt. I think it would help if you talked to him, but he told Catherine that we all trust each other with our lives, she should have trusted us with this. For what it's worth, I do think she was probably backed into a corner, but I just can't believe that any of the rest of us would have made the choice that she made."

He sighed heavily. "So much of everything comes down to trust, doesn't it?"

"Hmm. I suppose it does. You need to trust me not to stop loving you. I need to trust you not to leave me…"

"But it's more than that, Sara. Think about it—in the whole world, how many people do you trust? Really trust… Trust to be there for you, to not let you down, to not take advantage, no matter the situation. Trust enough to open yourself up a little…"

"Well, you, obviously. Nicky. Greg. Brass. And—I suppose—Warrick."

He looked at her in surprise. She smiled at his response and continued. "But I wouldn't have trusted him in the beginning, even if I'd known him better. And I still think that sometimes his judgment is questionable. Like when he married Tina. But these days the mistakes he makes only hurt himself. I know he'd never do anything intentional to hurt me. To hurt any of the rest of us. And I don't doubt his ethics. But I still don't understand what it was that made you give him so many chances, why you gave him such preferential treatment."

"Sara, you know Warrick's background. He really hasn't had anyone since his grandmother died. Think back to when Nicky was missing, to when we all realized that the kidnapping was random, that it could have been any one of us responding to that call. There was an element of 'there but for…' Do you remember that? Do you remember feeling that?"

"Yes," she answered slowly, carefully. She had suffered quite a bit of personal guilt over that reaction.

"Sara, what was your worst case scenario? The reaction that ate you up inside, the thought you felt guilty over even feeling? What would have been worse?"

It took her a long time to answer.

"You. The one thing worse than Nicky being buried alive like that would have been if it had been you."

He nodded, eyes dark and deep.

"And the thing that gave me nightmares for more than a year was that it could have been you. What about Catherine? Worst case scenario?"

"Lindsay."

"Umm hmm. And Greg?"

She pondered that a little.

"I'm not sure about that, but while he may be young, he has the most generous heart of anyone I've ever met. He would have been worrying about someone."

Grissom kept his suspicions to himself, but if there was anything in Greg's world worse than what had in fact happened to his friend and role model, then he was pretty sure that Greg's nightmares after Nick's rescue very much resembled his own. The young man's crush on Sara was long-standing and well-known.

"And Sara, what was Warrick's worst case scenario? What would have been worse than Nicky?"

Sara's face cleared, then saddened.

"Other than Nicky? Since his grandmother died? There isn't anyone."

"Right. All of the rest of us, there was someone else we couldn't bear the thought of being buried alive, and all the rest of us, WE were someone's worst case scenario, as Nick's kidnapping was his parents'. Not because we have better hearts or love more easily, but just because WE all have someone else in our lives. I think Warrick married Tina because he wanted someone to give a damn if he were buried alive. He wanted to be someone's worst case, to have someone other than himself to be his. So was his judgment questionable? Yes. But do I understand why he married her? I think I do."

"We would all have given a damn, more than given a damn, but—"

"Right. It's not the same."

"You've been a father figure, because you knew he'd never had one. Didn't have any unconditional support."

"Not since his grandmother died. And maybe never from a man. He's a good man, Sara. A strong man. He gives a lot of himself, and is a role model for kids in the community where he grew up. But everyone deserves to have one person in his life who believes in him no matter what."

Sara nodded, considering, finally beginning to understand.

"And Catherine?"

He shook his head slowly.

"I've known Catherine a long time. We're good friends. She's been there for me a lot of times. She's a great crime scene investigator, intuitive, in a way I could never be, and maybe the best blood spatter analyst in the country. But after all of that, I still don't understand how her mind works."

"Well, that makes two of us."

"So what was up with her and Keppler?"

Sara quirked an eyebrow. "I'm not sure I really know. I know Wendy tried to ask him out and he shot her down. Nicely. But people saw him at dinner with Catherine a couple of times. I think she really liked him, Gris, and he seemed to like her as well."

He sighed. "Sometimes I wish Catherine would just find some nice accountant…"

Sara smiled. "If she did, he'd turn out to be a serial killer or something."

"Her luck does seem to leave something to be desired."

"Unlike mine."

"That's not luck—it's the result of sheer determination and patience." He pulled her into his arms for a quick, tight hug, then glanced at the table. "Our eggs are getting cold, my dear."

"Then let's eat."

"And then what do you want to do on our day off?"

"Hmmm…" She smiled into his eyes. "How about taking Hank to Red Rock Canyon and going for a hike? And then we could come back here, make dinner, watch a movie in bed…"

"That sounds—nice. Really nice."

"As long as Catherine is still planning on working after what happened."

A quick call to Catherine confirmed that she was planning on going in, and didn't expect to see Grissom until the following night.

"Maybe it'll help her to have a day before I try to talk to her anyway."


	6. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 

And so it was that a far more relaxed and rested Grissom arrived at work the following day, a bearded man fresh off of a month's sabbatical, rather than one who had just worked more than 24 hours and then lost even a temporary member of his team. Sure, there

remained a nearly ceiling-high stack of mail to go through on his desk, and Las Vegas in February is never quiet from a criminalist's perspective. But a peaceful day of hiking and laughing with Sara and Hank, away from curious eyes, salving the remaining wounds

left by his absence had steeled him to face the pile and whatever else the night would throw at him. First, however, he needed to talk to Catherine. He walked into assignments five minutes late, as was typical. Another glance at the mail on his desk had driven him to the audiovisual lab to check in with Archie. Anything to postpone the inevitable at least a little longer. Sara was joking with Nick and Warrick but looked up and flashed him a private smile as he entered which he acknowledged with a half-wink. It felt so good to be home. The guys still had smiles on their lips, but quieted as he entered. Catherine sat kitty-corner from them, close to Warrick, but clearly not participating in the teasing he'd interrupted.

"Greg has court in the morning, so he's off tonight," Grissom started. "As for the rest of you, Nick and Warrick, liquor store hold-up gone bad," he passed over the call sheet. "Sara, I've got a home invasion robbery for you. Brass is at the scene." She took her sheet with a quirk of her lip which he had no trouble interpreting as, "ah, sorry we won't be working together, and I don't envy you your discussion with Catherine, but I'm glad you're home and I'll see you later." He waited until the three younger CSIs had left the room before turning to one of his oldest friends.

"Catherine, I'd like to talk with you. Come to my office?" She followed him quietly, and settled into a chair opposite his desk as soon as they reached the office.

"How're you doing, Catherine?"

"Me? Oh, I'm—fine."

"Seriously Catherine."

She looked up and met his eyes. He was a bit taken aback by the storm he saw behind her pupils. Apparently Sara was right in thinking there really had been something between Catherine and Keppler. "I'm pretty much numb at this point. And I don't really want to talk about him."

"I didn't ask you in here to talk about him. Not directly, any way. I wanted to talk to you about the Zamesca case."

Fire flashed in her eyes. "Who complained? Sara?"

"It doesn't matter who talked to me, but Sara didn't say anything about it until I asked her about it. You know, Catherine, I understand that the two of you will never be best friends, but Sara really isn't out to get you. Maybe you could give her the benefit of the doubt."

"Like she does for me?"

"Well, I don't think she ever faked a crime scene for you to process." He took a deep breath, reining in his instinctive defense of Sara, recognizing in part that Catherine was striking out in pain, falling back on old behavior patterns, old insecurities which had for the most part been long-resolved. "I know that you don't actually think that Sara has anything against you. But I don't want to turn this into a personality conflict. I just want to hear from you what happened."

"It was something Keppler had done before, a few times. They'd caught a murderer. I told them from the beginning that I hated deceiving the team, that they'd figure it out, but he'd shared his idea with the Under Sheriff and McKeen was nuts for the idea. Brass and I were under orders not to reveal what we were doing to anyone. I initially sent everyone out on assignments, but Keppler said we needed someone else to process the scene. We brought Warrick in, but had him process the perimeter only." She sighed. "I kept telling them that our guys were too sharp. We weren't going to be able to fool them, even if we kept them at a distance. I was under direct orders, Gil. What would you have had me do?"

He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. It felt so much like too many other conversations with Catherine in which she felt totally justified, even persecuted after taking some action he found at best questionable, and at worst, unethical, if not illegal.

"I don't know, Catherine. Tell McKeen you wouldn't do it?"

"It wasn't an option, Gil."

"And where do you stand with the team?"

"Why are you asking me? You've already talked to at least a couple of the guys. You know better than I do."

"I want your take."

She shrugged." They're pros. They'll get over it."

With a sense of deja vu, he recognized that they'd had this same conversation before, a conversation he'd hoped never to have again, but also that Catherine had been right the last time. He hoped she was now too.

"Nicky?"

"All of them."

"Okay then. Do you have something you need to work on, or should I send you out to give Sara a hand."

"After covering for you for a month? I've got plenty of paperwork I need to take care of."

"All right. I'll call you if I get another case."

It was nearing the end of shift before he ran out of busy-work and finally could no longer put off attacking the stack on his desk. He approached it warily, swearing it had grown taller even over the last six hours. He flipped through a few of the envelopes, then, as he had started to two—or was it three (it seemed like weeks)—days earlier, he decided to begin with the hand-addressed box. What he saw inside made his blood congeal. A perfect 1/2" scale model of a crime scene. A sudden onset of acid eating a hole in his stomach, he called frantically for Catherine as he carried the model down the hall to one of the trace labs, knowing that she was the only other CSI in the lab, knowing that with all the paperwork she still had to do, she couldn't have gone far.

"Call in Sara, Nick and Warrick. She can brief them on the history. This takes priority over EVERYTHING," he barked.


End file.
